


Let's go back to the good old days

by hamstergyu



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: M/M, hide just misses his best friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 06:42:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4090918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamstergyu/pseuds/hamstergyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The worst thing of all, Hide finds, is that life was so normal a certain number of months ago.  It took one night and a series of unfortunate events to screw it all up</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's go back to the good old days

Hide taps his fingers idly on the table and sighs again.  His companion rolls his eyes and takes a swig of his soda.  “If you don’t like that book, why are you reading it?”

Hide glances up for a brief moment and his copy of _The Black Goat’s Egg_ slips from his lap.  He manages to catch it in time though and shrugs his shoulders. “Who told you I didn’t like it?”  He takes a careful sip of coffee – bitter and black from the vending machine.  The taste on his tongue used to make Hide wince, but he’s gotten used to it over the months.  Still, the slight sting makes him wrinkle his nose before he goes back to his book. 

“You haven’t turned a page in the last five minutes, is it for a class or something?”  His friend raises an eyebrow pointedly and Hide smiles with a tired gleam in his eyes.

“Something like that, yea.” 

Truthfully, this book and the taste of bitter coffee on his tongue are all he has left.  All he has to cling to is the memory of Kaneki blabbing on about the new book he read so fast that his words slurred together.  Memories of ruffling up his best friend’s hair until that familiar little squeak of “Hide!” leaves his lips and he pouts so cute that Hide pinches his cheeks and makes him whine harder.  He remembers Kaneki carefully blowing on his coffee (always loaded to the brim with cream and sugar, sometimes no coffee at all) while getting so absorbed into the world of his books and he remembers him forgetting about until its gone cold anyway.  

All of that washed away after the incident.  His sweet, shy little Kaneki vanished.  And even though Hide strives to find him now, he doesn’t think he’ll be his Kaneki anymore. 

It’s all very strange to him, in a way.  It’s probably strange to Kaneki, too.  Years ago they’d heard about ghoul attacks on the news but brushed them off as nothing.  It was all background noise to two little boys rough-housing in the living room (usually it was Hide that was trying to drag Kaneki away from a novel to play with him).  It was all this background stuff with the vague idea of _“it won’t happen to me.”_   

And it’s true, it didn’t happen to them, not quite. 

Hide’s Kaneki is gone now.  His shy, blushing little book lover doesn’t exist anymore.  Hide watches the news religiously these days and keeps tabs on the famed eyepatch ghoul.  He rips down the _missing person_ posters with a sour look because Kaneki is not missing.  Not that smiling Kaneki. 

He’s dead. 

“Hey, I’m gonna head home, alright? Don’t stay out too late.”  His friend lazily shoves the last of his books in his backpack.  He ends up crushing a few papers to fit it all in, but does so with a smile and gives Hide a cheery wave even though he doesn’t return it.  “Seriously man, you hear what they’re saying on the news recently about ghoul attacks, stay safe.” 

Hide barely smiles. 

He leans back instead and takes a deep breath of the stinging cold air.  He lets his mind wander with his eyes shut loosely and a real smile tugs at his lips with the trace of real tears clinging to his eyes. 

_“Can’t you put down that book and play with me?”  Kaneki gives him a grumpy smiles and shoves him so lightly Hide barely even moves._

_“A good part is coming up, can’t you wait a little longer?” He uses those wide, pouty puppy eyes that make Hide cross his arms and fall to the ground.  He yanks out the grass and rubs it into Kaneki’s hair but he doesn’t mind.  And even if he does, promises of hamburgers and free coffee usually shut him up with a toothy grin and crinkly eyes that make Hide smile too._

_“You’ve read that book like seven times already,” Hide rolls his eyes and ends up blowing the grass out of his hair before dropping his head on Kaneki’s knees.  Hide has his response memorized, he’s his best friend Kaneki after all.  No one knows Kaneki Ken better than Nagachika Hideyoshi.  The same goes vice versa._

_“That’s how I know it’s coming,” Kaneki gives him a slight nudge with his knee to push him off.  But it’s so weak that Hide knows he only does it out of spite. “What do you even want to do?”_

_And Hide starts to blab about some girl from class 2A with pretty long hair that he knows is visiting the Karaoke place tonight.  Kaneki hums an answer in all the right places and Hide flicks the side of his book while he talks.  Sometimes he gets so flustered that his words slur together and Kaneki laughs at him.  Hide thinks that as much as he likes that girl from class 2A, her laugh still isn’t as gorgeous as Kaneki’s._

 

Hide opens his eyes to take a slow sip of his coffee. Its ice cold and so bitter Hide tries to shake off the taste.   He can’t tell if the taste comes from the coffee, or the unfairness of the world. 

Just months ago Hide would be doing something to coax out that deep red blush Kaneki sported.  He’d probably be crashing on his best friend’s couch after a horror movie that had scared Kaneki shitless.  He’d wake up to find said best friend tucked under his arm and he’d wake him up with roaring laughter and his response would be the famous “S-Shut up Hide!”   Kaneki would make pancakes and Hide would pour the orange juice and everything was right in their simple, two-person world. 

But now Kaneki Ken has disappeared, his hair has gone white, and he probably isn’t scared of horror movies anymore.  He probably won’t crawl into Hide’s arms like he used to and he for sure doesn’t add cream or sugar to his coffee these days. 

The worst thing of all, Hide finds, is that life was so normal a certain number of months ago.  It took one night and a series of unfortunate events to screw it all up.  Hide wants to go back to those movie nights with pancake mornings and he wants to shove grass in Kaneki’s hair until its more green than black and he just wants to be Hide and Kaneki again.  

Hide picks his book up again and rereads the same paragraph he’s been reading for the past hour.  He isn’t reading the book because he likes it, but because there has to be something hidden between the lines.  Some remnant of Kaneki flitting between the pages waiting for him to catch it.  Waiting for Hide to snag it and find another remnant hidden in the coffee and another somewhere in Anteiku until he can find them all and piece it all back together and find Kaneki Ken in the flesh. 

Hide frowns, downs the rest of the bitter coffee and digs around his backpack for a water bottle to wash it down.  He pushes the rest of his books into his bag (neat and careful, just like Kaneki would have) and is extra careful to keep _The Black Goat’s Egg_ at the very top.  He pushes his bright orange headphones over his ears and blares his music so loud he’s basically asking for a ghoul to rip his neck open out of sheer stupidity.

Hide doesn’t think he’d mind if it was a certain ghoul with stark white hair and an eyepatch mask. 

_“Kaneki, where did you run off to leaving me behind?”_

 

**Author's Note:**

> tokyo ghoul is taking over my life


End file.
